MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

In a Nutshell...

Located in the center of San Francisco's museum district is the Museum of the African Diaspora. Its mission is to promote the cultural contributions of African Diaspora and to record its struggles and triumphs. While the museum has a few exhibits showing the ancient diaspora from humanity's birthplace in Eastern Africa to around the world, some 50,000 years ago, most of the museum's exhibits deal with the more modern African Diaspora of the last 400 years or so. The museum works around four themes—Origins, Movement, Adaptation and Transformation. An example of an exhibit is a darkened room where one can sit against the walls on built in benches while listening to various actors (including the poet, Maya Angelou) read different moving first hand accounts of slave experiences.